Jedidiah Mugarura, a Ugandan poet, has won the 2025 Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets for their manuscript “Nyamuteza”.
The Sillerman Prize is awarded annually to African poets who have not yet published a full-length collection. It is administered by the African Poetry Book Fund and judged by a panel of established poets and editors. The 2025 panel included Chris Abani, Gabeba Baderoon, Aracelis Girmay, John Keene, Matthew Shenoda, Mahtem Shiferraw, and Phillippa Yaa de Villiers, with Kwame Dawes serving as series editor and director of the African Poetry Book Fund.
In praise of “Nyamuteza”, Aracelis Girmay said:
“I am quite astounded by the work–the writer’s intellectual brilliance, capaciousness, the assured narrative sensibility even as we are carried by nuance and difference.” Chris Abani also had high praise for Mugarura’s manuscript, noting “Nyamuteza” is “an extraordinary collection along the lines of Song of Lawino but [also] original.”
Mugarura, who traces their lineage to the people of Nkore, describes their writing as a way to recover lost stories and reimagine African futures shaped by agency rather than empire. Their poetry has appeared in Brittle Paper, Humber Literary Review, Obsidian, and Ampersand Review. Their prose has been published in Lolwe and Transition. Their play Tomorrow Never Came was staged in New York in June 2025 by the National Queer Theater.
Rabha Ashry’s manuscript Spirals received an honorable mention. Other finalists for this year’s prize were Jamila Osman (Trespass), Hazem Fahmy (Forms of Commitment), Alain Jules Hirwa (Dear Zoe), Timi Sanni (Amalgam of Blood and of Gold), Wale Ayinla (A Brief History of Seeds), and Antony Fangary (ya kharabi/o my ruin).
Mugarura is the thirteenth winner of the prize, joining past winners such as Michael Imossan (All That Refuses to Die, 2024), Abu Bakr Sadiq (Leaked Footages, 2023), and Tares Oburumu (origins of the syma species, 2022). These titles, along with other works in the African Poetry Book Series, are published by the University of Nebraska Press.
Congratulations, Jedidiah Mugarura!
Bakare Oluwatobiloba
I write to educate, motivate and define history with literature. Just being me!
